ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 2, 1996 TAG: 9607020041
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: reporter's notebook
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA
The New River has long been a place where I felt at peace.
From the time I was 12 until I was 20 I spent a week each year camping and canoeing on the river as part of a church group - the last year as a counselor. Those weeks produced, by far, some of my best memories of those awkward teen-age years.
As I moved into my college years at Virginia Tech I rarely saw the river until my senior year. That was when I met the man I would marry six years later. He and I would take drives to the river and throw a fishing line in the water and talk about everything important. We always felt comfortable and safe.
Now, in my duties covering the police and rescue personnel of the New River Valley, I see the river with, once again, a renewed respect. It is dangerous. That's a term I associated with the river after one camping trip when my church group helped save a 4-year-old boy trapped in a rapid called a hydraulic. The water kept pulling the boy under and throwing him in the air with the ease of a proud parent tossing a toddler and catching him in a playground.
The water simply would not let the child go, and the adult-size life vest he wore eventually fell off his small frame. We felt helpless. After what seemed an eternity, the rapid tossed the boy far enough away that an adult could grab him.
A hydraulic is formed when water flowing over a boulder or ridge in the river drops off into a depression and churns the water. The churning water flows down and then back toward the boulder and then repeats this circular flow. One of the first swimming tests I had to take at canoe camp was to swim to the bottom of a swimming pool. Sounds easy, but we had to pull ourselves to the eight-foot depth wearing our life vests.
The point was to make sure that if we got caught in a hydraulic, we could dive down below the churning water and break free. It was a lesson I never forgot and repeat to friends each time I take a novice on the river.
Most recently, I heard about Gary Adams' story.
Adams, a 43-year-old from Vinton, was fishing with two friends Wednesday near Parrott in Pulaski County when he nearly drowned. He was wading when he took a step into a watery nothingness.
In a telephone interview Monday, Adams said he really just wants to put the whole experience behind him.
"I fished that river for 15 years, on and off, and never knew that hole was there," he said.
The hole Adams was referring to was a submerged cave or depression in the river where the river's natural flow created the deadly current.
Luckily for Adams, his two fishing buddies were able to pull him from the water quickly before he drowned. They got their friend breathing again on his own. Rescue workers took Adams to Carilion Radford Community Hospital, where he was kept overnight for observation.
Adams said he doesn't remember much from the incident, but said he was told he was unconscious for three to five minutes.
I see one constant in these two examples of the water's strength and the victim's unavoidably weak response - a snug-fitting life jacket would have made all the difference.
"I would never go back there without a life vest," Adams said.
Adams was fortunate in his battle with the river, as was the little boy I saw years ago. The next time, the odds may be in the river's favor and we will all read with sadness about a drowning that may have been prevented by the use of a life vest.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB